METH LAB CLEANUP COSTS TAXPAYERS MAJOR BUCKS

LEXINGTON -- Methamphetamine use is growing in South Carolina and it costs
taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars for authorities to clean up the
dangerous makeshift labs where the drug is made.

Three years ago, only five meth labs were found in the state, according to
the Drug Enforcement Administration. This year, 99 labs have been closed.

In South Carolina, the biggest meth problem is in the Upstate. In 2000,
Greenville-area police found 13 labs. So far this year, they've closed 77
labs -- about 80 percent of the labs found in the state.

Through Aug. 31 of this year, the state had racked up cleanup costs of
$290,970. Cleaning up a meth lab, on average, costs about $4,000.

Almost anyone can set up a bathtub or kitchen lab using detailed
instructions from Internet sites or books, authorities said.

In rock form or in a confectioner's sugar-like powder, meth is a synthetic
amphetamine, similar to cocaine. It's been around since the 1970s, but
dealers recently have found a ready market in South Carolina. Only crack
cocaine is a more pervasive drug in the state.

Methamphetamine users call the drug crank or speed or ice. Two things make
meth a popular drug: It's a quick, long-lasting high, and it's cheap.

"It's a poor man's cocaine," said Lexington County Sheriff James Metts.

Some drug users start cooking meth when they figure out how easy it is to
feed their habit while making money.

"That's the lure," said Demi Garvin, a chemist with the Richland County
Sheriff's Office. "There's a huge profit margin."

It costs about $75 to buy lab equipment, but most cooks set up shop for
less, stealing what they don't have.

"It's homegrown from Kmart," said Sgt. Darren Amick of Lexington County's
Multi-Agency Narcotics Enforcement Team.

Police and firefighters said they risk their lives every time they find one
of the chemical labs or even pieces of a lab.

Household chemicals, such as paint thinner and lye, and the common farm
fertilizer anhydrous ammonia used to make meth are highly combustible.
Turning on a cell phone can spark an explosion.

Meth cooks sometimes set booby traps around already explosive labs to
prevent robberies and arrests. The chemical danger is intensified if cooks
are sloppy.

Meth makers usually head to the country to produce the drug because of the
strong chemical odor.

"It's the smell that a lot of times leads us to them," Lexington County's
Amick said. "It's a pure chemical smell. There's nothing like it."

Certified teams investigate the crime sites in hazardous-site moon suits
after getting special training that's paid with state and federal taxes. In
South Carolina, 25 law enforcers, DEA agents and police officers are
certified as meth-lab handlers, said John Ozaluk, the Drug Enforcement
Administration's assistant special agent in charge in Columbia.

The federally funded DEA handles training and equipment. It costs about
$3,600 to train and equip one officer, he said.

Annual recertification costs taxpayers another $1,500 for each officer.

As much as meth makers try to make a living off drugs, most spend their
profits getting high and rarely have much money or property worth seizing
to offset taxpayer costs, Sheriff Metts said.